SESSION I-3

A NEW CONCEPT OF INTEGRATED ON-LINE CONTINUOUS SUBSTATION

DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM
The First Pilot Project for the Italian Transmission Company Commissioned
in a 380 kV Substation

G. Amadi* and M. Gastaldelli#

ISA, Italy
*gino.amadi@isatest.com; #mariella.gastaldelli@isatest.com

Abstract: The Italian Transmission Company (TERNA) since several years was trying to implement an
integrated on-line diagnostic system of their substation apparatus in order to reduce maintenance time and
increase the life time of their asset. To implement this system, TERNA wished to acquire some
significant parameters from various substation apparatus, to have the corresponding alarm signals, and to
base on these alarms its preventive maintenance.

ISA has developed this system in cooperation with TERNA. This paper deals with the development and
achievements.

1 INTRODUCTION
The development is based upon a new concept of on-line diagnostic system that has the goal to reduce the
maintenance cost and increase the substation apparatus lifespan.

Purpose of the line diagnostic system is to highlight malfunctions before these can cause an outage of the
substation. In order to achieve this goal it is necessary to set up a continuous monitoring system of the
field apparatus: any further maintenance with dedicated instruments can be programmed depending on the
information received.

A pivotal design criterion of the system is that the collection of monitoring devices must not lower the
overall system reliability. As a consequence of this design criterion, the actual manufacturing follows
guidelines of extreme reliability for the components used and of minimal connection to the controlled
system. Moreover, if one component of MCS system fails, it doesn’t disturb the system.

The architectural work that was the base for the development has been the following one:
. Decide which devices had to be considered for the continuous monitoring;
. Decide which parameters of these devices had to be monitored;
. Decide the diagnostic criteria to be applied to the measurements that should cause an alarm to the
supervisor.

There are four devices that can be monitored by our system units; they are:
- Circuit Breaker, that includes: CB unit and I2T unit,
- Current Transformer (CT unit),
- Voltage Transformer (VT unit),
- Surge Arrester (SA unit).

In the following are explained the measured parameters of each unit, and the alarm criteria applied by the
feeder unit.

2 SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The following is the overall connection schematic of the system. There are:
. Measure units connected to the monitored devices;
. Data from these units (via direct wiring connections) go to a remote unit, that performs the analog to

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

digital conversion;
. Remote units are connected (via fiber optics) to the Feeder unit, where these data are analyzed by the
diagnostic criteria;
. Feeder units send their alarm messages (via ETHERNET) to the Substation Monitoring System, via a
Monitoring Recording Events interface.

Each remote unit is timing synchronized with GPS clock.

The physical construction of the MCS system devices is designed to be mounted and fit to a variety of
devices installed in substations, and can be mounted in existing or new enclosures.

Measuring Unit 111

Measuring Unit 112 SUB
Remote Unit 11 STATION
LAN
Measuring Unit 11n Remote Unit 12

Feeder Unit 1

Measuring Unit 1n1

Remote Unit 1n
Measuring Unit 1n2
Feeder Unit 2 U.
M. SUBSTATION
Measuring Unit 1nn MONITORING
SYSTEM
M
R
E
Measuring Unit n11
Measuring Unit n12
Remote Unit n1

Measuring Unit n1n Feeder Unit “n”

Remote Unit n2

Measuring Unit nn1

Remote Unit nn
Measuring Unit nn2

NETWORK
Measuring Unit nnn CONTROL
CENTER

FIELD or CONTROL ROOM

FIELD
CONTROL ROOM
Fig. 1 MCS block schematic.

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

3 REMOTE UNITS
In the next figure, you can see is a schematic representation of the signals processed by each remote unit
and where the remote units are mounted.

Phase R Phase S Phase T

Phase R Phase S Phase T
110 V
P.A.

P.A. P.A.
SURGE
ARRESTER VT UNIT
OUTDOOR UNIT OUTDOOR Voltage (3 AI)
Current (6 AI)
OUTDOOR or VT BOX
OUTDOOR

110 V
110 V

U.S.
MEASURES COMPUTING CT UNIT
BREAKER UNIT: UNIT AND FIBRE SF6 Density (3 AI)
SELECTOR
Commands &
Auxiliary Contacts (13 DI)
110 V OUTDOOR
SF6 Density (3 AI)
Phase R
Phase S
IN FEEDER CUBICLE
CB CONTROL BOX Phase T

Protocol
IEC 60870-5-101

I2T UNIT
Current (3 AI)
MONITORING UNIT (U.M.) Busbar A/B (2 DI)
OF THE SCADA SYSTEM

IN FEEDER CUBICLE
or in Protection Cubicle

Fig. 2 Remote units – Signals acquired

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

The following is the overall view of the diagnostic system for one feeder.

Fig. 3 Single feeder diagnostic system

3.1 Circuit Breaker Unit (CB Unit)

The CB unit acquires 3 analogue signals and 13 digital signals (basic unit).
The analogue signals serve to measure the SF6 density coming from transducers.
The digital signals acquired by CB units are: 6 CB open command signals, 1 close command signals of
the circuit breaker, 3 auxiliary contacts matching CB position (open CB), 3 auxiliary contacts not
matching CB position (close CB).

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

When an Open or Close command is generated from the substation control system, it is also acquired by
the CB unit. The command signals trigger the CB unit that records all digital signals, and measures the
corresponding timing. All measures, identified by the trigger channel and measured channel, are sent to
the feeder unit for subsequent processing.

Optionally, it is possible to have four more analogue measurements: 3 for CB coil current profile analysis,
one to monitor the subsystem battery.

3.2 I2T circuit breaker Unit (I2T Unit)

The I2T unit is acquires 3 analogue signals and 2 digital signals.

The analogue signals acquired by I2T units are current measurements, taken from the CT secondary. By
these signals is it possible to compute the energy dissipated in every CB operation.
The unit is continuously ready to measure the current. The measurement is started by the feeder unit that
issues a measurement command when it recognizes an Open command from the CB unit. On the
measured currents, the I2T unit performs the following functions:
- It verifies if the current is greater than the programmed threshold;
- It detects the maximum interrupted current, taking in account the current values corresponding to the
arcing, that is the programmed duration before the current extinction: this is the parameter
transmitted to the feeder unit.

I
I MAX
computing
area DELAY

Te

Fig. 4 Example of the computation performed by the I2T unit.

The digital signals acquired by I2T units are the positions of feeder disconnectors: by means of these
signals is it possible to understand on which bus-bar the feeder is inserted.

3.3 Current Transformer Unit (CT Unit)

The CT unit is acquires 3 analogue signals, that are the measurement of SF6 gas density. The
measurement is started by the feeder unit.

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

SF6 density sensor Sensor installation CT unit

3.4 Surge Arrester Unit (SA Unit)

Peripheral SA unit Central SA unit Peripheral SA unit

The analogue signals acquired by SA units are made of a central unit and of two peripheral units. Each
unit includes:
- 1 low current measurement: this allows testing the quality of ZnO, as per the method outlined by
IEC standards 60099-5 A1 ED. 1.0 Section 6: Diagnostic indicators of metal-oxide surge arresters
in service (method B1). Measurements performed are the peak of the total current and the rms
value of the third harmonic component.
- 1 high current measuring, that measures the current peak and time of occurrence when the arrester
is operating.
Units sense the current crossing the arrester ground connection.

The central unit receives the measurements from the peripheral units and converts them for the feeder
unit.

The low current measurement is started by the feeder unit at a low pace. The high current measurement is
polled by the feeder unit at high pace.

3.5 Voltage Transformer Unit (VT Unit)

The VT unit is acquires 3 voltage signals. Purpose of this unit is to provide an accurate measure of the VT
secondary voltage: the MRE will detect the VT fault by comparing the measurements of the other VT in

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

the plant.

Upon a synchronization signal from the feeder unit, the VT unit computes true rms values of the voltages,
and transmits them to the feeder unit. In this way it’s possible to get measurements coming from
different VT units performed at the same time.

4 FEEDER UNIT

Each feeder units is connecting to up to 5 remote units and it is time synchronized with GPS clock (like
the remote units). Signals acquired by the feeder units are computed to generate alarms, trends,
measurements for the substation monitoring system.

4.1 Inputs from the remote units

The feeder unit collects the measures from the remote units, by means of optical fibres. The feeder unit
reads the measurements at specific times from the remote units.
The measure polling period is programmable for each type of unit. At confirmation of the successful
measure transmission, the remote unit deletes the measurement from the local memory; otherwise it
repeats the transmission of the measure.

4.2 Software of the feeder unit

The operating system of the feeder unit is based on the Windows CE platform; therefore the software will
be developed with Microsoft programming tools. The basic characteristics are:
- Execution of the monitoring of the various remote units,
- Storage of the results in daily/weekly/yearly database that can be simply consulted,
- Trend analysis of the SF6 density (for circuit breakers and current transformers),

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

- Possibility to modify the threshold parameters,

- Possibility to remotely configure thresholds, zeroing measurements and so on,
- Remote interrogation from another PC via static IP (with password),
- Transmission of the measurements and the alarms to the substation monitoring system.
Thanks to this approach, changing the alarm criteria can be easily performed, to adapt the system to the
various types of substation devices and analysis criteria.

4.3 Input signals to the feeder unit

The following is the detail of the analysis of the signals acquired by the feeder.

4.3.1 Breaker timings

The alarm criteria generated by the analysis of signals from the CB unit are the followings:
- Time between the open command and the contact not matching the CB position(one or three
measures, depending on single-phase or three-phase open);
- Delay between the close contact and the contact matching the CB position(three measures);
- Trigger spread time (three-phase open command);
- Open pole discrepancy (none or one measure, depending on single-phase or three-phase open);
- Close pole discrepancy (none or one measure, depending on single-phase or three-phase open).

For each type of timing there is a defined tolerance. The feeder unit checks the values against the
tolerances and, if surpassed, an alarm message is sent to the MRE system.

4.3.2 SF6 gas density (breaker and CT)

The feeder unit computes the density speed of variation (not only the density), as per the following
algorithm.

- RAPID VARIATION, FAULT: The density measurement is performed at a fast pace (for instance 10 s);
then it is performed an average over a programmable number of measures.

- SLOW VARIATION. The density measurement is performed once a day, overnight, when the
temperature is more stable, at the programmed time. The derivative is calculated on the average of a
programmable number of values, as a difference of the readings over two or more days.

In both instances, if the average varies of a value greater than the fault thresholds (programmable), the
corresponding event is immediately raised.

4.3.3 I2T
The current peak for each interruption is used to:
- Compute the corresponding I2T;
- Add up the measured value to the cumulated total, and refresh it.
The cumulated total is checked against the programmed threshold value, and the alarm is generated when
the threshold is surpassed. It is possible set a number of thresholds.

When the device is installed, the operator can program the cumulated I2T value at the moment of
installation.

4.3.4 Surge arresters

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009
 Session I-3

For the low current measurements, the peak and third harmonic values are checked against the
programmed thresholds. The feeder unit raises an alarm when the maximum programmed threshold is
surpassed. Two different alarm thresholds are defined: one for the fundamental current and the other one
for the 3rd harmonic current. The measure of the fundamental current is stored together with that of 3rd
harmonic, to complete the event information.

For the high current measurements, the feeder unit counts the total number of discharges, along with the
timing of the various events, and passes to the MRE this information along with the current peak value.

4.3.5 VT monitoring
The algorithm for the monitoring of the VT has the purpose of highlighting anomalies in the transformer,
despite the line voltage variations and the unavoidable measurement errors. The algorithm needs the
measurements coming from at least three VT connected to the same phase. These measures (every 4
hours) are synchronized by an IRIG-B device.

The algorithm operates on the differences between measurements, and locates the VT with the minimum
voltage output, having a difference with respect to the others that is beyond the pre-set limit.

Implementation of the monitoring algorithm for VTs could also be made in feeder units.

4.4 General characteristics of the feeder unit

The fibres coming from the various remote units are connected to a fibre selector placed in the feeder
unit. In the feeder unit is placed also the computing unit, that manages also the communication protocol
with the substation monitoring system.

Each remote units and feeder units as well, have their firmware and setting parameters. By means of a
dedicated line on the feeder unit, separate from the interface to the substation monitoring system, but
using the same physical connections to send request to remote unit and receiving signals information, it
will also be possible to modify parameters of remote units or measuring units, and also to upgrade their
firmware without the need of physically go in the field.

5 CONCLUSIONS
The on-line monitoring system is very flexible as the remote units are not dependent from the devices
manufacturer and the feeder central unit can handle different protocols.

The proposed ISA on-line diagnostic system allows to monitor a variety of substation devices (existing
and new) with reduced impact with the existing circuit in order to have a condition based maintenance
reducing the outage time, the related cost and increase the devices lifespan.

6 REFERENCES
[1] EN 60694: Common specifications for high voltage switchgear and controlgear standards

[2] IEC standards 60099-5 A1 ED. 1.0 Section 6: Diagnostic indicators of metal-oxide surge arresters in
service (method B1).

[3] M. Puricelli “MCS System for continuous monitoring of substation devices” Rev 6 – dated
09/12/2008 – ISA Doc number SIIMCS_6.

International Conference on Condition Monitoring & Diagnostic Engineering Management of Power Station / Substation Equipment - 2009